Tips for making a painted backdrop

[Tim Meisburger]

I see a lot used in portraits and still lifes, and have seen reference to how easy they are to make with a bed sheet and a can of paint. I'm a fair mechanic, but I'm not really artistic. Can anyone describe how to do this in simple terms? I, and I am sure other, would appreciate it.

Tim

[RichardSperry]

Don't use a bed sheet.

Buy a white muslin 10x20 for about $30 or 40 from Amazon.

You can dye it with Rit dye, for about $6 bucks. Just boil it in a big pot with a cup of salt until the dye is all absorbed. Or tie dye it in a bucket. Or paint it if you like, it gets hard if you do that.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss...in%2Caps%2C512

[John Kasaian]

I read in an old shutterbug it was best to use a seamless painters canvas drop cloth and RIT fabric dyes. IIRC Francis Schulz wrote the article.

[cdholden]

CJBroadbent posted some time back on how he makes his backdrops.
While he uses them in the many still life shots he shares on this forum, I think they would work well for portraits also.

[jon.oman]

I never thought of using Rit dye.....

[cjbroadbent]

Often the problem is wrinkles.
If you are going to roll it up, you'll need Rosco paint and you might as well go for Rosco canvas. No crackle, no wrinkle.

Tight budget? The double bed-sheet thing stapled to a DIY 2x4 stretcher is cheap, wrinkle-less and lasts forever.

My way, after a few years of screw-ups.
Lay a room-size plastic sheet on the floor (to keep it clean). Lay down the frame and staple the bed-sheet. Prepare two buckets of diluted white wall paint. Mix a tube of aniline black into one bucket.
Using a roller on a long handle, start with the white on the right hand bottom corner and work fast up to the centre diagonal. Dip the dirty brush into the black and work down to the middle from the top left corner. Add a few drops of aniline blue to the black bucket and a few red drops to the white bucket. Switch to a big brush on a long handle and blend with broad strokes. Somewhere in the middle you should have a medium grey.
BEFORE IT DRIES, mix some white with plenty of water in a garden plant sprayer. Spry up into the air above the sheet so that the a gentle mist falls from above and deposits onto the wet surface. This gives you a vague aerial perspective. Let it dry flat overnight.
Your light source is always from the left (that's tradition). So the illuminated side of the subject separates from the dark side of the background and the shadow side of the subject separates from the light side of the background (that's also tradition, think of how a statue in a niche works).
If you keep the right side white enough you will only ever need one light source for everything - no hair-light, no accents, no backlight, ever.
Examples here.

[alanbutler57]

Often the problem is wrinkles.
If you are going to roll it up, you'll need Rosco paint and you might as well go for Rosco canvas. No crackle, no wrinkle.

Tight budget? The double bed-sheet thing stapled to a DIY 2x4 stretcher is cheap, wrinkle-less and lasts forever.

My way, after a few years of screw-ups.
Lay a room-size plastic sheet on the floor (to keep it clean). Lay down the frame and staple the bed-sheet. Prepare two buckets of diluted white wall paint. Mix a tube of aniline black into one bucket.
Using a roller on a long handle, start with the white on the right hand bottom corner and work fast up to the centre diagonal. Dip the dirty brush into the black and work down to the middle from the top left corner. Add a few drops of aniline blue to the black bucket and a few red drops to the white bucket. Switch to a big brush on a long handle and blend with broad strokes. Somewhere in the middle you should have a medium grey.
BEFORE IT DRIES, mix some white with plenty of water in a garden plant sprayer. Spry up into the air above the sheet so that the a gentle mist falls from above and deposits onto the wet surface. This gives you a vague aerial perspective. Let it dry flat overnight.
Your light source is always from the left (that's tradition). So the illuminated side of the subject separates from the dark side of the background and the shadow side of the subject separates from the light side of the background (that's also tradition, think of how a statue in a niche works).
If you keep the right side white enough you will only ever need one light source for everything - no hair-light, no accents, no backlight, ever.
Examples here.

These are gorgeous. If the final results are to be digitized, I wonder if shifting the color palette to cyans would work the same way (thus allowing color to be shifted in post processing without affecting skin tones). Many thanks for a wonderful trade "secret".

[zenny]

Often the problem is wrinkles.
If you are going to roll it up, you'll need Rosco paint and you might as well go for Rosco canvas. No crackle, no wrinkle.

Tight budget? The double bed-sheet thing stapled to a DIY 2x4 stretcher is cheap, wrinkle-less and lasts forever.

My way, after a few years of screw-ups.
Lay a room-size plastic sheet on the floor (to keep it clean). Lay down the frame and staple the bed-sheet. Prepare two buckets of diluted white wall paint. Mix a tube of aniline black into one bucket.
Using a roller on a long handle, start with the white on the right hand bottom corner and work fast up to the centre diagonal. Dip the dirty brush into the black and work down to the middle from the top left corner. Add a few drops of aniline blue to the black bucket and a few red drops to the white bucket. Switch to a big brush on a long handle and blend with broad strokes. Somewhere in the middle you should have a medium grey.
BEFORE IT DRIES, mix some white with plenty of water in a garden plant sprayer. Spry up into the air above the sheet so that the a gentle mist falls from above and deposits onto the wet surface. This gives you a vague aerial perspective. Let it dry flat overnight.
Your light source is always from the left (that's tradition). So the illuminated side of the subject separates from the dark side of the background and the shadow side of the subject separates from the light side of the background (that's also tradition, think of how a statue in a niche works).
If you keep the right side white enough you will only ever need one light source for everything - no hair-light, no accents, no backlight, ever.
Examples here.

Yep, thanks for useful information.

And I cherished visiting your site (http://www.christopherbroadbent.pro). Or call them "visual therapy"! :-) Some still life pictures look like paintings. How do you achieve such tonality? Just curious.

//zenny

---

Support http://thehumanape.com

[mandoman7]

Mr Broadbent's advice is obviously right on. I would add that Chicago Canvas is a great supplier of muslin or canvas, serving the theater industry in addition to photogs. Also, in addition to the rollers for painting, I would suggest trying sponges and brooms to apply the paint with different textures, after some base coloring has been established. Usually after putting a several coats on the backdrop and then doing some test shots, I would want to make refinements such as darkening a corner and or adding some texture. What I found was that, with each successive layer the background seemed to get more interest and depth. So its good to just start rough and assume that adjustments will be made over time. Good luck!

[DrTang]

[QUOTE=zenny;907392]Yep, thanks for useful information.

And I cherished visiting your site (http://www.christopherbroadbent.pro). ....
---

the backdrops are nice and all...BUT

What is that REALLY COOL wood deal with crank or something on the far right of that studio pix?


oh man.. whatever it is..I want one